4 The Holy Spirit can indeed make use of memory, for God Himself is there. Yet this is not a memory of past events, but only of a present state. You are so long accustomed to believe that memory holds only what is past that it is hard for you to realize it is a skill that can remember now. The limitations on remembering the world imposes on it are as vast as those you let the world impose on you. There is no link of memory to the past. If you would have it there, then there it is. But only your desire made the link, and only you have held it to a part of time where guilt appears to linger still.

"Christ asks that He may use my eyes today, and thus redeem the world." (W.295.1.1) It is up to us to say yes with Christ's vision, which is to see my brother in all his innocence. I want to see the Christ in him, but I know I can't do it with my own effort. I need to admit that whatever I am seeing with my own eyes is a witness to my wrong mind. I still see my brothers as separate from me, and I judge them for my sins projected onto them. These are all judgments I hold against myself. Until I step out of the way and let Him lead the way, I am lost in my own judgments, comparisons, and specialness that put my needs at the forefront of every relationship.

When I turn my way of seeing over to the Holy Spirit and ask for His interpretation of what I look upon, His vision shows me that we are all the same. He shows me a world that sparkles with beauty and innocence. Yet in order to see it, I must bring every judgment and grievance to the Holy Spirit for healing, so space is made in the mind for the love of God to come through me. This is how I ". . . allow the Holy Spirit's Love to bless all things which I may look upon, that His forgiving Love may rest on me." (W.295.2.2)

"He asks this gift that He may offer peace of mind to me, and take away all terror and all pain." (W.295.1.2) We give our eyes and our senses to be used by Christ today. Christ is a synonym here for the Holy Spirit. We give our bodies to the Holy Spirit for His purposes, rather than for our own. Jesus is always telling us when we choose the Holy Spirit as our Guide to seeing, we are doing it on behalf of our own happiness. The gift we give our brother is always received by us, even as we give it.

"This is your brother, crucified by sin and waiting for release from pain. Would you not offer him forgiveness, when only he can offer it to you?" (T.19.IV.D.15.1-2) (ACIM OE T.19.Vd.103) When I see my brother as guilty and want to punish him and blame him for what I think he has done, I need help to step away from my way of seeing. I need to be willing to ask for help, so I can see how holy and beautiful he is. I can only do that when I recognize it is my own sin and guilt I am projecting onto him. With my own senses, what I perceive is error, which I have made real in my brother. The Holy Spirit shows me my brother's call for love so I know the same call is in me. We have the same Christ Self in us.

Jesus tells us a mind that has forgiven itself can only perceive safety, love, and joy. The forgiven mind can't condemn or judge. A mind at peace with itself can't see a world of death, attack, and murder. Clearly, there is still evidence of death and attack and murder in the world, but a mind that does not judge sees the truth of who everyone is behind the veil and holds no condemnation. How can a mind that is kind have any thoughts or perceptions unlike itself?

We need to take total responsibility for all our judgments and condemnations and be willing to look at them and ask for help of the Holy Spirit to show us what He sees instead of what we see. We see our own self-interest, but looking at our judgments without judging ourselves is important for our healing. When we condemn ourselves, we are keeping ourselves in the loop of thinking we are guilty and now deserve to be punished. It is not helpful for our healing. It is helpful to see our judgments and recognize the importance of welcoming everything that shows up for our learning. We remind ourselves ". . . that His forgiving Love" (W.295.2.2) is always resting on us. Whatever mistakes we make, it makes no difference to Him.

In the Manual for Teachers, Jesus speaks of generosity by saying, "To the world, generosity means 'giving away' in the sense of 'giving up'. To the teachers of God, it means giving away in order to keep." (Manual 4.VII.1.4-5) This is truly a reversal of the world's thinking. When we see through the eyes of Christ, we can only bless, and thus we experience the blessing and the love. "The teacher of God is generous out of Self interest. This does not refer, however, to the self of which the world speaks." (Manual 4.VII.2.1-2) It is our responsibility to, "Make no one fearful, for his guilt is yours, and by obeying the ego's harsh commandments you bring its condemnation on yourself, and you will not escape the punishment it offers those who obey it." (T.13.IX.2.2) (ACIM OE T.13.III.12)

By being willing to heal our own judgments, our terror, and our pain, the blessing of the Holy Spirit can shine through us. Thus, ". . . the dreams that seemed to settle on the world are gone." (W.295.1.3) These dreams appear to each of us in many different forms. None of them are real, but we will believe in their reality until we wake up from the dream.

Think of everything you are doing today and think about how much of it comes from fear. We bake a cake and fear it will not come out right. We plan a lunch date and wonder how we will appear, what we will wear, and whether we will arrive in time. We take the car to the service station and get concerned about what it will cost. We look at the Lesson and wonder if we will get it. We go to the dentist and worry about the pain we may experience. We worry about our future and our health and finances. We fear getting sick, fat, aging, and on and on it goes. This world of form arose when we chose the ego, which in itself is fear. When we shift our attention to the Holy Spirit, asking for His help to see each situation differently, He reminds us our dream of fear is not the truth. Everything comes from our own minds. Everything is a story of a future that has not yet come. We keep time real in our minds, thinking of what may happen in the future. As we notice our plans, we can give them over to the Holy Spirit so we can experience the joy of the present moment where all is well. The Son of God fell asleep and dreamt a physical world. We are the dreamer of the dream and not the figure in the dream. As we recognize this more and more, we see that"As I am saved, the world is saved with me" (W.295.1.5) because the world is in the mind. It is all imagination.

As each fear thought comes up, we can question it and realize our way of seeing is always wrong. With a willingness to surrender our misperceptions, we turn them over to the Holy Spirit to have all our fear thoughts healed. Yes, sometimes we take them back again and again, but with willingness each time they come up, we continue to bring them to the light of Truth. It takes a willingness to do this, as the Holy Spirit will take nothing we have made without our willingness. We just need to resign as the one who thinks it knows how to solve every problem. We need to recognize this deceived mind is not who we are. Yet while we still identify with the wrong-minded thought system, we must bring awareness to it and keep turning it over to the Holy Spirit no matter how often we need to do this. Time was made for this. We have told ourselves millions of times that we are stupid, unworthy, and unlovable, so even if it takes five thousand times to turn a wrong-minded belief to the Holy Spirit, we need not get discouraged. He does all the heavy lifting. Our part is simply the willingness to look, recognize we are wrong, and trust the Answer is within.

"Fear appears in many different forms, but love is one." (W.295.1.7) It is like what was said about problems. They appear in many different forms, but they always have just one source---the guilt in the mind. The only healing possible is to go back to our minds and stop pretending there will ever be a solution in the world. Yes, we appear to solve problems that show up in the world, but they are not solved for all time and simply show up in other forms. Our lives become a series of problems and we keep doing our best to address them. The only real solution is to bring the cause of all our problems---the guilt in the mind---to the light of truth, where peace shines forth regardless of what seems to be happening in our lives. From this vantage point, we see all problems as opportunities to choose again.

Let's give the gift asked of us today so it is given us. When I see someone, who attacks me and I get upset, I experience pain, sadness, and grief. The interpretation I have given to the attack brings the upset. The Holy Spirit's interpretation is that the attack is a call for love. When I see it in any other way and experience distress, I have chosen to throw my peace away. The peace is a constant in my right mind. Anything other than peace is a decision for the wrong-minded thought system. The Holy Spirit asks us to bring our painful feelings and experiences to Him, so He can replace them with His peace and love. "He asks this gift that He may offer peace of mind to me, and take away all terror and all pain." (W.295.1.2)

Why would we choose to hold onto terror and pain? We do so because we would rather be right than happy. We feel justified in our so-called "position," which comes from the way we have constructed reality. Until we are willing to change our minds, we will tenaciously hold onto our misperceptions, but at what cost? The cost is to not know the unlimited Christ Self we are.

Imagine a day where your entire purpose is to see love everywhere and where there is attack, to see only a call for love. Imagine a day where every fear thought that comes up you willingly give over to the Holy Spirit. Imagine a day where you have perfect confidence that no matter what it may look like in the world, you know you are perfectly supported in every moment. You know you are never alone in anything you do because He goes with you. He is part of your mind. You just need to be willing to trust Him in all things. Imagine yourself as the light of the world you already are. "My Father, Christ has asked a gift of me, and one I give that it be given me. Help me to use the eyes of Christ today, and thus allow the Holy Spirit's Love to bless all things which I may look upon, that His forgiving Love may rest on me." (W.295.2.1-2)

1 The miracle does nothing. All it does is to
undo. And thus it cancels out the interference to what has been done. It does not add, but merely takes away. And what it takes away is long since gone, but being kept in memory, appears to have immediate effects. This world was over long ago. The thoughts that made it are no longer in the mind that thought of them and loved them for a little while. The miracle but shows the past is gone, and what has truly gone has no effects. Remembering a cause can but produce illusions of its presence, not effects.

2 All the effects of guilt are here no more. For guilt is over. In its passing went its consequences, left without a cause. Why would you cling to it in memory if you did not
desire its effects? Remembering is as selective as perception, being its past tense. It is perception of the past as if it were occurring now and still were there to see. Memory, like perception, is a skill made up by you to take the place of what God gave in your creation. And like all the things you made, it can be used to serve another purpose and to be the means for something else. It can be used to heal and not to hurt if you so wish it be.

3 Nothing employed for healing represents an effort to do anything at all. It is a recognition that you have no needs which mean that something must be done. It is an unselective memory, which is not used to interfere with truth. All things the Holy Spirit can employ for healing have been given Him, without the content and the purposes for which they have been made. They are but skills without an application. They
await their use. They have no dedication and no aim.

II. The Present Memory

4 The Holy Spirit can indeed make use of memory, for God Himself is there. Yet this is not a memory of past events, but only of a present state. You are so long accustomed to believe that memory holds only what is past that it is hard for you to realize it is a skill that can remember
now. The limitations on remembering the world imposes on it are as vast as those you let the world impose on you. There
is no link of memory to the past. If you would have it there, then there it is. But only your
desire made the link, and only you have held it to a part of time where guilt appears to linger still.

5 The Holy Spirit's use of memory is quite apart from time. He does not seek to use it as a means to keep the past, but rather as a way to let it
go. Memory holds the message it receives and does what it is given it to do. It does not write the message nor appoint what it is for. Like to the body, it is purposeless within itself. And if it seems to serve to cherish ancient hate and offers you the pictures of injustices and hurts which you were saving, this is what you asked its message be, and this is what it is. Committed to its vaults, the history of all the body's past is hidden there. All of the strange associations made to keep the past alive, the present dead, are stored within it, waiting your command that they be brought to you and lived again. And thus do their effects appear to be increased by time, which took away their cause.

6 Yet time is but another phase of what does nothing. It works hand in hand with all the other attributes with which you seek to keep concealed the truth about yourself. Time neither takes away nor can restore. And yet you make strange use of it, as if the past had caused the present, which is but a consequence in which no change can be made possible because its cause has gone. Yet change must have a cause that will endure or else it will not last. No change can be made in the present if its cause is past. Only the past is held in memory as you make use of it, and so it is a way to hold the past
against the now.

7 Remember
nothing that you taught yourself, for you were badly taught. And who would keep a senseless lesson in his mind when he can learn and can preserve a better one? When ancient memories of hate appear, remember that their cause is gone. And so you cannot understand what they are for. Let not the cause that you would give them now be what it was which made them what they were or seemed to be. Be glad that it is gone, for this is what you would be pardoned from. And see instead the new effects of cause accepted
now, with consequences
here. They will surprise you with their loveliness. The ancient new ideas they bring will be the happy consequences of a cause so ancient that it far exceeds the span of memory which your perception sees.

8 This is the Cause the Holy Spirit has remembered for you, when you would forget. It is not past because He let It not be unremembered. It has never changed because there never was a time in which He did not keep It safely in your mind. Its consequences will indeed seem new because you thought that you remembered not their Cause. Yet was It never absent from your mind, for it was not your Father's Will that He be unremembered by His Son.

9 What
you remember never was. It came from causelessness which you confused with cause. It can deserve but laughter when you learn you have remembered consequences which were causeless and could
never be effects. The miracle reminds you of a Cause forever present, perfectly untouched by time and interference. Never changed from what It
is. And
you are Its effects, as changeless and as perfect as Itself. Its memory does not lie in the past nor await the future. It is not revealed in miracles. They but remind you that It has not gone. When you forgive It for your sins, It will no longer be denied.

10 You who have sought to lay a judgment on your own Creator cannot understand it is not He Who laid a judgment on His Son. You would deny Him His effects, yet have they never been denied. There was no time in which His Son could be condemned for what was causeless and against His Will. What your remembering would witness to is but the fear of God. He has not done the thing you fear. No more have you. And so your innocence has not been lost. You need no healing to be healed. In quietness, see in the miracle a lesson in allowing Cause to have Its
own effects and doing nothing that would interfere.

11 The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant and is still. It reaches gently from that quiet time, and from the mind it healed in quiet then, to other minds to share its quietness. And they will join in doing nothing to prevent its radiant extension back into the Mind Which caused all minds to be. Born out of sharing, there can be no pause in time to cause the miracle delay in hastening to all unquiet minds and bringing them an instant's stillness when the memory of God returns to them. Their own remembering is quiet now, and what has come to take its place will not be wholly unremembered afterwards.

12 He to Whom time is given offers thanks for every quiet instant given Him. For in that instant is His memory allowed to offer all its treasures to the Son of God, for whom they have been kept. How gladly does He offer them unto the one for whom He has been given them! And His Creator shares His thanks because He would not be deprived of His effects. The instant's silence that His Son accepts gives welcome to eternity and Him and lets Them enter where They would abide. For in that instant does the Son of God do nothing that would make himself afraid.

13 How instantly the memory of God arises in the mind that has no fear to keep the memory away. Its own remembering has gone. There is no past to keep its fearful image in the way of glad awakening to present peace. The trumpets of eternity resound throughout the stillness, yet disturb it not. And what is now remembered is not fear, but rather is the cause that fear was made to render unremembered and undone. The stillness speaks in gentle sounds of love the Son of God remembers from before his own remembering came in between the present and the past to shut them out.

14 Now is the Son of God at last aware of present Cause and Its benign effects. Now does he understand what he has made is causeless, making no effects at all. He has done nothing. And in seeing this, he understands he never had a need for doing anything and never did. His Cause
is its effects. There never was a cause beside It that could generate a different past or future. Its effects are changelessly eternal, beyond fear, and past the world of sin entirely.

15 What has been lost, to see the causeless not? And where is sacrifice, when memory of God has come to take the place of loss? What better way to close the little gap between illusions and reality than to allow the memory of God to flow across it, making it a bridge an instant will suffice to reach beyond? For God has closed it with Himself. His memory has not gone by and left a stranded Son forever on a shore where he can glimpse another shore which he can never reach. His Father wills that he be lifted up and gently carried over.
He has built the bridge, and it is He Who will transport His Son across it. Have no fear that He will fail in what He wills. Nor that you be excluded from the Will that is for you.

DAILY LESSONS

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